From: Albert Wagner <alwagner@...>
Date: 2002-03-25T01:17:42+09:00
Subject: RE: Windows version of Ruby

KING.  Nobody's afraid
to die when he sees good reason for it.  Hell,
we're not here for fun!  We came believing
there was some use in it.  Maybe some of us think
there still is use.  I've been trying to hold on
this last half-year -- I've been trying to believe
the whole world would rise up and step on this evil
that crawls over Spain -- and it has risen up,
and stepped on us.  And now I'm beginning to wonder
if a cause is sacred when it's lost.  Did we volunteer
to die in a lost cause?
VICTOR.  What's gone?  What's changed
since yesterday?
KING.  Our cause is lost, that's all...
Why should we die here for a dead cause, for a symbol,
on these empty ramparts, where there's nothing to win,
even if you could win it?
VICTOR.  Yes, but if I die
then I know men will never give in;
then I'll know there's something in the race
of men, because even I had it, that hates injustice
more than it wants to live.  -- Because even I had it --
and I'm no hero --  And that means that the Hitlers
and the Mussolinis always lose in the end -- 
force loses in the long run, and the spirit wins,
whatever spirit is.  Anyway it's the thing
that says it's better to sit here with the moon
and hold them off while I can.  If I went with you
I'd never know whether the race was turning
down again, to the dinosaurs -- this way
I keep my faith.  In myself and what men are
and in what we may be.

MAXWELL ANDERSON (1888-1959)
-- 
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of